


the snow is falling thick and fast and painting shadows on the ground

by scenedenial



Category: Tiny Meat Gang (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Anal Sex, Big Emotions, Canadian Thanksgiving, Kissing, M/M, Mile High Club, Noel's POV, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:14:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26888695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scenedenial/pseuds/scenedenial
Summary: It’s not that Cody’s parents aren’t lovely people; they are. But the prospect of sleeping in their home and eating their food and infringing on their holiday, all while covering up the fact that he and their son have thisthingbetween them—it makes Noel feel like puking.Or, Noel celebrates Canadian Thanksgiving with Cody's family.
Relationships: Cody Ko/Noel Miller
Comments: 5
Kudos: 91





	the snow is falling thick and fast and painting shadows on the ground

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact lmao I started this fic over a year ago and here it finally is
> 
> as always, this is a work of fiction; don't show it to the boys or anyone involved with them

“Jesus Christ, man. Slow down.” Noel leans over the armrest and nudges Cody, on his third rum and coke, in the ribs. They have two more hours of this shit, 30 thousand feet above the blurry ground, and if Cody throws up Noel _will_ sock him in the face.

“Fuck off.” Cody is irritable and snappy, tucked away into his hoodie with his beanie pulled down over his ears. Noel watches him turn up the volume on his music and turns away to stare out the tiny sealed airplane window. Being all the way the fuck up here, above the clouds, where the sky is this creepy gray-blue and doesn’t seem quite there, always gets Noel feeling fucking _weird_. Feeling like it wouldn’t be so bad to fall from up here, all the way the fuck down. Could be peaceful. Or whatever. 

Cody makes this noise in his throat, and when Noel turns back to him, his knuckles are white on the armrest. Noel pulls his headphones off.

“You good? Need anything?” Cody is looking a little chalky, a little sweaty. 

“M fine.” His voice is gruff. “Flying sucks shit.” 

“Yeah.” Noel says, reaching over to pat Cody’s forearm in a way that he hopes is comforting. Is surprised but not mad when Cody grabs for his hand and holds it there in his own damp palm. “Not too much longer, right? ‘S all good.” 

Cody nods, tense. Noel wants to press his palms to Cody’s chest and pull all of the anxiety out of him, would take it for himself if it meant Cody didn’t have to clench his teeth like that.

“Can you, like, distract me?”

“Yeah, man.” Noel swallows. “Like, how?”

“ _Noel._ ” Cody throws back the remainder of the rum and coke in one swig. Yikes. 

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. Hold on.” Noel opens his laptop, clicks around for a second. “Here, you wanna see what I’m working on?” It’s a half-edited _react with chat_ , and though Cody offers him a few obligatory snort-laughs, Noel can see that it isn’t doing much. 

“You know what.” Cody says abruptly, hand coming up to snap Noel’s laptop closed. “Let’s do something else.” Noel can’t read his face.

“Oh?” He asks, pulling at the cuffs of his sweatshirt. The air of the plane is stale and dry, tastes like dentist-office ass. Cody is undoing his seatbelt. 

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom. Follow me in, like, two.” There’s no hint of comedy in Cody’s eyes, no _of course this is a bit, dickwad._ Noel’s mouth is dry.

“You serious, man?” Cody is already standing up, grinning at him with this fucking shit-eating look in his eyes. _Jesus._

“See ya, Noel.” 

—

The logistics of being pressed into a plane bathroom with another fully grown person—well, they fucking suck. Cody’s elbow sinks into Noel’s ribs. 

“Jesus,” Noel grunts. 

“Shut up.” Cody says, and then Noel is being shoved up against the wall and Cody’s cold hand is pressing its way under the bottom of his sweatshirt. _Okay. This is happening._

The low growl of the engine is louder here; Noel looks up and sees the red light blink on the smoke detector. _Fines of up to $10,000 for tampering with this machinery._ Cody undoes Noel’s belt. 

Cody’s hands are nice in that his fingers are all thick and kind of rough like a woodworker’s, or whatever, and they make Noel ache as they slip between his thighs. Not that Noel would ever tell him that—that’s exactly the sort of shit that would go right to Cody’s big ass head. Noel grunts and tries to spread his legs further. His jeans are like a vice around his thighs that he needs to squirm free of.

“You ever done this before?” Cody pants, hands at his own waistband. He’s got this flushed, wild look about him and it makes Noel want to kiss him and have him sit down in equal measures. 

“Nope.” Noel answers truthfully. Cody pushes down his sweats and steadies himself with a hand on the wall beside Noel’s head. 

“Me neither.” Cody says in this voice that sounds small and almost afraid. Noel leans forward and kisses the tender spot below his jaw. 

Cody’s hand feels huge where it presses into the space between Noel’s shoulder blades; Noel sighs, a sound like there’s something stuffed in his mouth, stifling, and drops his forehead against the smooth wall of the airplane bathroom. _Fuck. Fuck._

Cody had procured a condom and one of those crinkly lube packets from the pocket of his hoodie and Noel had wondered idly whether he’d been _planning_ for this. 

__

Cody grunts into the back of Noel’s neck. His dick presses another inch inside of Noel, the pressure so grating and slow that Noel could fucking scream. 

“Good?” Cody whispers, now.

“Yeah.” Noel’s voice sounds odd, higher than usual, like it’s being torn from a different place in his chest. “You?” 

“Uh huh.” Cody’s other hand comes up and wraps around Noel’s waist, below where his sweatshirt is ruched up beneath his arms, steadies them both. Then Cody is _tugging_ , pulling Noel back and down onto his dick, and the pressure changes into something far larger and far more fucking explosive. 

“What the fuck.” Noel mutters into the wall, not an exclamation as much as a pleading _how_. Cody’s teeth meet the skin where Noel’s neck flows into his shoulder and bear down. Noel pants. 

Cody’s thrusts are getting sloppy, stuttery, and Noel takes it as a cue to reach down and wrap his fingers around his own aching dick. Cody murmurs something that Noel can’t make out; he turns his head sideways and they kiss. 

It doesn’t last long after that. Noel arches his back and chases Cody’s hip movements, breathing hard through his nose to keep from making noise. Cody’s hands are getting tighter and tighter on Noel’s hips and Noel thinks Cody could probably snap him in half if he really wanted to, you know? 

When Cody comes Noel feels the heat and feels Cody’s open-mouthed sighs against his neck, feels the way he tenses up like he’s flexing. Cody loosens his grip on Noel and moves like he’s going to pull out, but Noel reaches down and grabs quick at his wrist.

“Wait.”

“What?” Cody’s voice is slow and hazy in his post-orgasm blur. Noel doesn’t let his wrist go.

“Wanna come with you in me.” It’s a fucking embarrassing thing to say aloud, but Noel doesn’t think it gets more embarrassing than letting your business partner and best friend rail you in a plane bathroom on your way to his parent’s house for Canadian fucking Thanksgiving. 

“Oh,” Cody says, then, _”oh.”_

“Touch my dick, man.” Noel says, half-joking-half-pleading. Cody does. 

—

“Cody! Noel!” 

“You’re cool, man.” Cody whispers, and Noel hadn’t even realized he’d tensed up. “Mom! Dad!” 

Noel watches him hug his parents, watches the way they’re all smiling, the way Greg’s hand rests gentle on Helen’s shoulder. It looks nothing like Noel’s homecomings. 

“Noel,” Cody’s mom says then, making him blink his way out of it, “get over here!” 

He hugs them both, feeling halfway like an intruder. Cody’s eyes are all big and bright when Noel glances back and this means so _much_ to him. 

“How are you, son?” Greg asks, and Noel would be lying if he said it didn’t put a lump in his throat. “Was the flight smooth?” 

“Oh, yeah.” Noel says, trying his best to keep his voice even. _Don’t say their kid’s fingerprints are still visible on your skin, asshole. Don’t even think it._ “It was all good.” Cody is looking down at the carpeted airport floor and Noel can see the color in his cheeks.

—

Being in Cody’s childhood house is, well, it’s fucking _weird._ All these photos of him, bowl cut and round-ass cheeks, hanging on the walls, diving trophies on the mantle. A photo of Cody and Noel together, actually, on their last tour, right next to one of Krista and her husband. Jesus fucking Christ. 

“Are you guys hungry?” Greg asks, and Cody says _yes_ , of course. Noel agrees, even though he isn’t. He feels like the bottom of his esophagus is being chewed at by stomach acid; wants to lock himself in the bathroom and pop a Xanax or something. 

(It’s not that Cody’s parents aren’t lovely people; they are. But the prospect of sleeping in their home and eating their food and infringing on their holiday, all while covering up the fact that he and their son have this _thing_ between them—it makes Noel feel like puking.)

“Hey.” Cody says, turning to Noel once they’re sat in the car on the way to the restaurant; Cody told his parents they’d be driving separately, probably so he could stage this fucking intervention. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah, dude, I’m cool.”

“You don’t _seem_ cool. You seem like you’re freaking the fuck out.” 

“Cody—” Noel says, and he knows he sounds exasperated. “I’m fine.”

“No you’re _not_.” Cody leans over to where Noel sits in the passenger seat, grabs at the cuffs of his winter coat. “I can tell you’re not.” 

Noel wants to say _leave me alone_ but he doesn’t. Noel wants to say _please kiss me_ but he doesn’t. Instead he crosses his arms like a petulant child and says, “‘M just anxious. It’s nothing.” 

“Okay.” Cody says, and his clammy hand slides into Noel’s. “Why are you anxious?” 

“I don’t fucking know, man.” Noel’s fingers are cold and stiff; the windows of the car are fogged so that the heavy drifts of snow outside are blurred into white blotches. “It’s just weird.” 

“What is?” Normally Noel hates Cody’s therapist-spiel thing but right now he’s thankful for it, for the questions that let him push all the shit out of his head. 

“Like. Being here. Staying with your parents.” Noel doesn’t want to sound harsh, backtracks. “Like, they’re great, man. Really. But it’s just, you know, so fuckin’ different from my home life. I don’t know how to deal with it.” 

“Alright.” Cody says, and he sounds so _understanding_ that Noel doesn’t know what to do with it. “I get it.” 

“And I just—I don’t want them to, like, find out, dude.” 

“About us?” Cody is wearing a black coat and his skin glows pale against it off the reflections of the snow. Noel looks out the window, over the darkened, icy street. 

“Yeah.” 

“They won’t. Not if we don’t want them to.” Cody squeezes Noel’s cold hand in his own cold hand. “Okay?”

Noel nods, feeling all torn up and raw inside in the way that only Cody and his dumb soft eyes get him, pulls his beanie lower over his ears. “Okay.” 

Cody leans over the glovebox and kisses the corner of his mouth.

—

Maybe Noel was hungry after all, because once the four of them are tucked in a warmly-lit booth in the corner of the steakhouse he demolishes his starter salad without hardly looking up from it. When he glances over, Cody is looking at him with this warm, _loving_ look in his eyes. Noel wants to tell him to knock it off. Noel wants to take him to bed. Cody smiles, licks salad dressing from the corner of his mouth with a quick flick of his tongue. 

“So, Noel,” Helen starts, swirling the red wine in her glass (Noel and Cody both ordered beers), “what’s been keeping you busy lately?”

Noel’s not sure how to answer that question. He’s not sure if _laughing at virgins on the internet_ is the answer she wants to hear. Cody jumps in before Noel can flounder.

“He’s been doing a ton of work in the studio recently.” Noel cuts Cody a glance like _thank you_. “You should hear the beats he’s been making.”

“Well,” Noel interjects before the affection in Cody’s voice can make him blush, “the songs are as much Cody’s as they are mine.” 

“It’s great that you two work so well together.” Greg says, and Noel nods. If only they knew.

—

Noel has the guest room to himself. The guest room that, coincidentally, used to be Cody’s bedroom, with the hot air balloon wallpaper still peeling in the closet. Noel sits down on the double bed and wonders how many time young Cody jerked off in here, then shakes his head to clear the thought. Jesus, Miller. 

Is it still pedophilic if—never mind. Better not to go down that route at all.

Cody’s got the pullout couch in the basement. His mom fussed over it, apologizing for never buying the bigger house they were talking about, while Noel stood on awkwardly and Cody sighed _mom, it’s fine._

Cody kisses the space behind Noel’s ear while he’s brushing his teeth. He smells like mouthwash and garlic butter. Noel would shove him off if he could bear the thought of that. The lights go off upstairs.

“They go to bed at like eight,” Cody says, smiling, “This was a late night for them.” 

“They think I’m an idiot.” Noel says, spitting again into the sink.

“Don’t be stupid, man. They love having you here.”

Noel shrugs, rubs sleep out of the corner of his eye (was that there all day?).

“ _I_ love having you here.” Cody’s chin comes down in the dip of Noel’s shoulder. In the bathroom mirror reflection Noel looks like he hasn’t slept for weeks and Cody looks like an angel.

“Freak.” Noel snorts as Cody’s hand slips beneath the hem of Noel’s t-shirt. 

—

Noel’s eyelids feel like lead weights, but it’s not like that _means_ anything to his brain. He rolls onto his right side, checks his phone on the nightstand. It’s after three in the morning. The thin glow of a streetlights falls across the sheets that are tangled around his legs.

Fuck. It reminds Noel of touring—the unfamiliar bed, the too-soft pillow, the never-total-darkness. Like touring, but without Cody sighing in his sleep in the next bunk over. Without the redbull in the fridge and the lull of the engine that becomes comforting somewhere around hour twelve.

And Noel isn’t the kind of person who creeps around other people’s houses in the middle of the night but, fuck, before today Noel wasn’t the kind of person who took it up the ass in an airplane bathroom either. He slips out of bed. 

“ _Cody_ ,” Noel hisses, feet freezing on the bare basement floor, “wake up.” 

Cody blinks, shifts, then sits straight up like he’s been electrocuted.

“What the _fuck,_ Noel? You tryna give me a heart attack?” Cody’s shirtless, hair disheveled, squinting up at Noel in the low light. 

“No, I just couldn’t...sleep.” 

Cody’s face softens instantly. He shifts over in the bed (surprisingly spacious for a pullout) and pats the mattress that still holds the indent of his body. 

“C’mere.” Noel almost shakes his head, almost walks back up the stairs. He doesn’t want to. He wants to feel Cody’s body next to his. 

“Yeah, okay.” The bed creaks as he settles onto it. Cody sighs as he settles into him. 

“Are you okay?” Cody asks with his face scrunched up. They’re lying on their sides, facing each other, knees touching. If Noel leaned forward another inch their noses would knock together like the first time they kissed.

“Yeah,” Noel closes his eyes and opens them again, “just fuckin’ strung out, I guess.” 

“Yeah.” Cody’s breath on Noel’s face is enough. It’s enough.

Noel kisses him anyways.

Cody lets this surprised half-laugh and then his hand his coming up to rest on Noel’s cheek and Noel can’t even think about Helen and Greg asleep upstairs because Cody smells like airplanes and dust and Noel is lost lost lost in him. 

“Noel—” Cody breathes, and Noel doesn’t know what to do with himself, “stay.” 

“I can’t.” Noel murmurs into his neck. “Not here.”

Noel falls asleep in the bed in the room upstairs with the pillow clutched to his chest.

—

Breakfast is waffles and sliced fruit and orange juice and whipped cream — not the kind from a can either, because the whir of the hand mixer is what woke Noel up with a hard on in his pajama pants like a fourteen year old. 

Cody smiles at Noel from across the kitchen table. There’s a raspberry seed between his two front teeth. Noel wants to reach across and pick it out with his thumbnail.

“How’d you sleep, Noel?” Greg asks, passing him a mug of coffee. Noel doesn’t know if he ate breakfast with both his parents at the table, like, ever.

“Good, good, thanks. The bed in there is great.”

“Isn’t it?” Helen says. “When Cody was in college he’d say that mattress is what he missed most.” 

Cody snorts, shoves a forkful of waffle into his mouth. 

“Nah, the _dogs_ were what I missed most.” Helen swats him in the shoulder. 

Noel thinks about when Cody hit a million subs and his parents sent a massive, three-tiered cake to the studio. Noel thinks about the apartment his dad lived in after his parents split. 

“We’re picking Krista up from the airport at five.” Greg says. “Cody, maybe you can show Noel around today?” 

Cody gives Noel this stupid fucking look that Noel deciphers as _I’ll show you around this cock_ , but nods. 

“Take him to the mall you worked at in high school.” Helen suggests, forking another waffle over onto Noel’s plate.

“You don’t wanna see that, do you man?” Cody chuckles, but, like, Noel does. He wants to know what register sixteen year old Cody stood behind. What cartoons he used to watch after school. What brand of cereal he’d beg for at the grocery store. What the first girl he kissed looked like, and whether he was scared. 

Instead, Noel swallows and says, _I dunno, man, might be good to get reacquainted there in case this tour flops._

Everyone laughs. That’s what Noel is good at, making everyone laugh.

__

It’s barely six and the sun is down. Cody’s hands slide rough up Noel’s thighs. The bare, incandescent lightbulb that hangs from the basement ceiling flickers. 

“They’re gonna get home.” Noel stutters.

“Nah,” Cody’s hand slips higher, “her plane hasn’t even landed yet.” 

“Fine.” Noel’s eyes close, head against the pillow that smells like Cody but in a different way than the one back in LA does. 

“Hey,” Cody’s weight presses into Noel’s ribs, “will you fuck me?” 

Noel’s surprised by it at the same time that he isn’t. He hasn’t topped Cody in months, but his cock swells in his boxers.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” 

“Here,” Cody murmurs, rolling off Noel to dig through his carry-on bag for lube.  
It’s chilly down here with the snow piling in drifts outside, but Cody’s skin radiates heat like a furnace. Noel presses his mouth into the round bone of Cody’s shoulder. 

The Cody on his stomach with nothing on but the hoodie that’s bunching around his ribs hits Noel hard in the stomach. The way Cody’s hip slots snug into his hand hits him harder.

“You got a condom?” Noel asks, hard and alert for any noise on the hardwood upstairs. 

“You don’t have to use one,” Cody says, half-muffled by the pillow, “if you don’t want to.” 

“Oh,” Noel says, because it’s an admission, he thinks, of _something_. Of _I won’t fuck other people if you won’t._ Of _yeah, this is happening._ “That’s kinda gay, man.” 

“Yeah, yeah, shut the fuck up.” Noel can hear Cody’s smile in his voice. “Get on with it.”

Noel does.

—

They’re watching Ocean’s Eleven on the living room couch, nursing beers, when Helen and Greg and Krista come in, all dusted with snow. 

Noel can still feel the resistance of Cody’s hole opening around him. 

There’s hugging and drinks poured and then Krista is sitting next to Noel on the couch while Cody helps his parents with dinner in the kitchen.

“He told me.” She says under her breath. “He called me this morning.” 

“Damn.” Noel says, rubbing his jaw. 

“I don’t give a shit.” Krista’s wearing those ankle-height suede booties. Noel likes her. “He likes you.”

“He’s my best friend.” Noel says, and it’s so corny that it sticks coming out of his mouth. 

“I know.” Krista takes a drink out of Cody’s IPA. She looks like him. Noel imagines them as kids fighting over the remote. “And Paul was my best friend.” She flashes the ring on her left hand.

“Man, shut up.” Noel’s face is hot. Krista raises her eyebrows. 

“I’m just saying.” 

“It’s not like that.” Noel says, even as his palm burns with the muscle memory of Cody’s neck against it.

Cody yells _dinner_ and, as they stand, Krista puts a hand on Noel’s wrist. It makes his throat thick.

“Happy Thanksgiving.” Cody’s face is in Noel’s neck, his hair smelling like woodsmoke. Noel pushes up off the pillow, disoriented and smeary-eyed.

“I’m not even Canadian like that, man.” 

“Doesn’t matter. We gotta go knead dough.” Cody sits on the edge of the bed and Noel wants to pull him down underneath the covers and never leave this twin bed.

“That a euphemism?” Noel chuckles. Cody rolls his eyes.

“Actual dough, idiot. We make these dinner rolls every year.” Cody is wearing a green sweater and he looks soft around the edges. He looks relaxed. Noel could kiss him.

“I know you talked to Krista.” Noel says, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Cody swallows; Noel can hear it.

“Are you mad?” 

“Nah.” _I don’t know what you’d have to do to make me mad at you, Cody._

“Good.” Cody’s hand falls, open-palmed, across Noel’s hip. “She’s my sister, you know?”

Noel nods. The cold, reflected light coming through the window makes Cody look like he’s been carved out of marble. Noel wants to force a finger between Cody’s lips, wants to feel the wet, real heat of his mouth. Instead, he sits up and pulls off the t-shirt he slept in.

“We better go make these rolls.” 

—

It’s fun, once Noel falls into the rhythm. He lets Krista tie an apron on him, red and white plaid, and sings along under his breath to the Fleetwood Mac that Greg puts on. Cody has flour on his forehead. Snow falls in a powdery film through the kitchen windows. 

Holidays in Noel’s house growing up usually involved takeout and old movies on VHS. Good in a different way. His chest aches for his parents, sharp and sudden. 

Cody’s hand passes over the small of Noel’s back, so lightly that it could be an accident. It brings him around. 

After the rolls are in the oven and the pies are cooling on the counter and once football is playing on the flatscreen in the living room, Cody catches Noel in the hallway and kisses him.

Noel’s shoulders tense, a knee-jerk reaction. Cody murmurs _it’s alright._

“Do you wanna take a walk?” Cody asks. Noel nods. 

“I’m sorry if this is weird.” Cody says once they’re out in the snow with their beanies pulled down low. The sun is starting to go down, streaking the horizon in cold pinks.

“It’s okay. It’s good.” The crunch of the iced-over ground under Noel’s shoes feels good. It’s probably 85 in LA right now. “Thanks for bringing me, man. You didn’t have to.”

“I know that. I wanted to.” They round a corner and the house is out of sight. “I wanted _this_.”

They kiss. Cody’s mouth is so warm. 

“Happy thanksgiving.” Noel says. Cody laughs.

Noel’s job is making people laugh, but he likes Cody’s best of all.


End file.
